Tension is growing between Red Bull and Renault

F1 Test, Hungary, Hungaroring

Red Bull and Renault are set to part ways at the end of the 2018 season, but tensions are mounting in the wake of recent technical glitches with the Renault power unit.

Reliability issues have been continuously hampering Red Bull’s championship campaign this year, prompting the energy drink-owned team to be vocal about their relationship with the French engine manufacturer.

Red Bull is currently third in the Constructors’ Championship, long behind the two field-leading teams, Mercedes and Ferrari. The Anglo-Austrian team’s RB14 has proved to be fragile over the first half of the season with many technical gremlins, resulting in retirements. In addition, the car’s straight line performance was hindering its chances on track featuring longer full-throttle sections.

The Milton Keynes-based team pointing fingers at its long-time engine partner Renault, however the works Renault team’s better reliability issues and higher top speeds suggest that Red Bull might be more aggressive with its design and may have worse aerodynamic efficiency.
When asked about Renault’s situations, Max Verstappen added: "Honestly at the moment, it's difficult to accept.”

“I am not going to get drawn into saying too much, but we pay multi millions of pounds for these engines, for a first-class product, a state-of-the-art product, and you can see it is quite clearly some way below that,” Horner is quoted as saying by Sky Sport.

“So it is frustrating. That is what it is. We still have Daniel in the race and I will let Cyril come up with his excuses afterwards.”

Red Bull has already elected to use Honda power unit as of the next season after its sister team Toro Rosso has been using it since the beginning of 2018. Honda will be the fourth engine partner of Red Bull which started its Formula One campaign with Cosworth back in 2005 before switching to Ferrari to the following season. In 2007 following the request of the teams then new technical director Adrian Newey, Red Bull dropped Ferrari to Renault. For the last three years, Red Bull’s engines was branded as TAG-Heuer.